5237. 'A servant of the chief of the attendants' means in which there was truth that served that which came first and foremost in explanations. This is clear from the use of 'a servant' to refer to truth, dealt with in 2567, 3409; and from the meaning of 'the chief of the attendants' as things which come first and foremost in explanations, dealt with in 4790, 4966, 5084. And since truth is of service to explanations - to explanations of the Word - 'a servant of the chief of the attendants' here means truth that is of service.

3484. From very much experience I have come to know that there is but one life - the Lord's. This life flows in and gives life to man, to both good and evil alike. To that life the forms which consist of material substance correspond, and those forms - by means of a constant inflow of the Divine - receive life in such a way that they seem to themselves to live independently. This correspondence is a correspondence of the organs of life with life itself. Yet the nature of the recipient organs determines the kind of life they have. In those people who have love and charity within them that correspondence is present, for the life itself is received by them as it should be. But that correspondence is not present in those who have the reverse of love and charity within them, for the life itself is not received by them as it should be. Consequently the nature of the life received by them depends on what they are like themselves. This may be exemplified from the natural forms on to which the light of the sun falls - the nature of the forms receiving it determines the variations of the light reflected in them. In the spiritual world the variations are spiritual, and therefore the nature of recipient forms in that world determines that of the intelligence and the wisdom they have. This is why good spirits and angels are seen as embodiments of charity themselves, while evil and hellish spirits are seen as embodiments of hatred.